I have built a desk out of oak cabinet grade plywood and red oak trim. I am looking for advice on how to finish the final product. I understand the desire for stain is one I will have to determine with consultation from the wife, but I was wondering what is best to receive a nice hard finish that will stand up to some wear and will not make indentation in the wood when writing on the desptop.
thanks, Alex
p.s. I posted this a few minutes ago to the general category because of a goof, so I reposted it here. I hope that is okay.
Replies
No finish can really prevent the underlying wood from being dented from the pressures of a ballpoint pen if it is not itself very hard. Unfortunately, oak plywood is mostly similar in hardness to the poplar or asian hardwood in the inner plys. I would recommend a traditional resin varnish Behlen's Rockhard is quite good. It is designed for brushing, but by adding more thinner you can turn it into a wiping varnish. Even if you do plan to brush it on, it will need to be thinned by adding at least 10% of its thinner.
Oak also has very large pores, which make for a less than wonderfully smooth writing surface. There are several methods to fill these pores. I usually use an oil based pore filler, such as Behlen's Pore-O-Pac. On oak this will probably take two applications. I haven't used this on a desk, and I don't think it is going to be very hard interm of resisting ball point pen indentations. Alternatively, you could fill the pores with a hard finish, such as dewaxed shellac, by applying it, and after every couple of coats sanding, with a sanding block, so that you nearly cut through the finish on the high parts. At each stage you will see fewer and fewer shiny spots where the finish has sunk in the pores. Eventually you will get a very nice filled surface, but this is a long process with pores the size of oak's. When you have filled the pores, you could add a couple of coats of varnish to provide the benefit of the greater protection. This process will take a great many coats, but the thickness of the film will not be a lot in the end, because you will have sanded so much of the shellac off, in every place except the pores.
Both of the pore filling methods I have outlined are pretty labor intensive. The other alternative for oak is just to apply an "in-the-wood" finish with something like Watco. You don't get lots of protection, but it looks good, and is easy to repair. You would need a separate writing surface to avoid denting the top.
As I suggested on the main discussion board, use a desk top blotter for a writing surface. Pens don't really write all that well on a flat hard surface anyway.Gretchen
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled